Ricardo Hausmann’s “Morning After” for Venezuela: The neoliberal brain behind Juan Guaido’s economic agenda
While
online audiences know YouTube comedian Joanna Hausmann from her
videos making the case for regime change, her economist father has
flown below the radar. His record holds the key to understanding what
the U.S. wants in Venezuela.
by
Anya Parampil
Part
4 - “Neoliberalism is the path to hell”
Back in
Venezuela, the Bolivarian Revolution ushered in by Chávez provided
an antidote to the IESA method that had produced so much social
damage to Venezuela’s majority.
“The
Bolivarian Revolution was an indirect response to neoliberalism, born
of mass resistance in the streets,” claims Ciccariello-Maher,
observing that while “in power, it remained largely faithful to
that mission.”
Ciccariello-Maher
added that “it would be difficult to exaggerate the impact
Chavismo has had on Venezuelan society,” because for the first
time in its history “oil was put at the service of the people.
…Most important, however, the poor – so long excluded – became
‘protagonists’ in the political life of Venezuela, and active
participants in local direct democracy.”
Chávez
moved to nationalize not only the country’s prosperous oil
resources, booting ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips from the field, but
also centers of agricultural production, telecommunications, and
mineral mining. Considering Venezuela sits atop the largest oil
reserves in the world, as well as sizeable gold stocks, this
achievement was no small feat.
In his
1998 inaugural address, Chávez cited Pope John Paul II as having
described capitalism as “savage,” using the words of His
Holiness to highlight the social damage left behind by Hausmann and
his colleagues. Chavez declared: “It is savage that in a country
like ours more than half of preschoolers are not going to preschool.
It is savage to know that only one out of every five children who
enter preschool, only one in five finishes elementary school. That is
savage because that is the future of this country.”
In 2002,
just one month after facing down a U.S.-backed coup attempt, Chávez
addressed a conference in Madrid declaring “neoliberalism is the
path to hell.” Unlike Pérez, Venezuela’s new leader would
not sell out his promise to reject the IMF’s austerity agenda.
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